The Smallest City with 4 Abandoned Railway Stations
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 มิ.ย. 2022
- Welcome to this weeks little video all about the City Of Wells and its Railway comings and goings!
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Jago and now the Whitewicks a perfect Sunday afternoon. M
Agree
As do I.
Thank you for video. The stations may be gone, but there's something left. In Tincknells yard in Wells, which appears to be the site of the Priory Rd station, there are some rails still there at the far end, that stretch away to the left and down. I went looking a couple of years ago. When you follow the remains of the track line upwards from outside Wells, the direction matches where the rails are heading.
I travelled from Yatton to Wells in 1963. You could see the remnants of the S & D line curving round and I think the shed was in place. I then took the train from Wells to Whitham passing the third station. I didn't realise at the time that the line closed later that year. Years later when working at the baby food factory (also closed) I went to search for the stations especially Priory road and found it difficult to find.
Ahhh perfect Sunday teatime viewing 👌
My mother was evacuated from East London to Shepton Mallet during WWII. Having visted Shepton Mallett a few times i can see all the problems
Its quite a landscape there isn't it
@@pwhitewick Dead right my "uncle" still has a farm and a cider loft at the top of the hill but its an experience getting there from Weston-super-Mare.
@@michaelcampin1464 yes even coach and local bus services are a little trying
Good morning/afternoon Paul & Rebecca, you are our Sunday morning start to the day over breakfast! Greetings from Southern Alberta Canada! My wife and I really enjoy your videos showing us parts of the UK. Keep up the great work.
Wow - cool slider! This is more like your early ones - entertainingly produced. Love it!
Nice vid. I do love these abandoned stations. Uttoxeter had 3 stations originally! It’d be worth taking a look at that sometime.
Best add it to the list!
@@pwhitewick Norwich and gt yarmouth both had three stations, now only one each!
@@pwhitewick and as a bonus, the next village up the track towards Rocester had the first automatic crossing in UK. Nothing remains of the crossing or the track and there’s only one station now, on a totally separate site to the other 3, so I guess that makes 4. 😮
Short but sweet! An interesting story, well delivered, thank you!
Hi Paul. Thanks for that video. I live in Yatton so have a great interest in the Strawberry Line. I would have loved to have lived here when the line was still operating. I have however had the chance to meet several people who worked on the line, drivers and signallers and here there stories of days yonder. Thanks once again.
Thanks David. Strawberry Line video to follow!
Loved that thanks Paul. Lots of stations for one little place. Loving the history. Thanks so much for taking me along. Please stay safe and take care
Always enjoyable to watch, and certainly appreciate the top rate editing and B roll footage... Thanks.
Thank you. At least we still have the locomotive City of Wells with us!
Thanks for the tour! Cheers Mate!
Thank you for enlightening me! Living about 20 - 25 miles north of Wells ( in Bristol), to be honest,I never realised Wells had any railway stations.Having said that Priory Road, is where the bus station is located .In addition there is evidence of former railway line further up the A37 In the Radstock area, which I think was the Somerset & Dorset line.The Cheddar line in the Yatton area is a cycle path - the Strawberry line.Thank you for another enjoyable & interesting video.Francis.
I think some of that line through Radstock is a heritage line. Although it starts at Midsomer Norton. That place where everyone dies...
The GWR Frome to Bristol line also passed through Radstock, some of the track is still in place, the 'Five Arches' bridges together with Pensford Viaduct still survive. Midsomer Norton (south) station (S&D) has been refurbished plus about a mile of track which is now a heritage line.
Very interesting vlog as always. Lovely small city. Again sad that the railways all gone. Thank you for all your research and info. Much appreciated.
Thanks for this. I asked for it and you said it was coming! Cheers guys!
Short and sweet, thanks!
Perfect Sunday viewing! Love Wells it’s such a beautiful place (plus my favourite film of Hot Fuzz was filmed there!)
Nice video Paul, very interesting. I live in Radcliffe a small town north of Manchester between Bury and Bolton, we had 5 stations in our town at one time, six for a very short time, when a halt was built but closed later. We have just the one station left now which is on the Manchester Metro link. There is still one abandoned station left at Ringley, what was once on the East Lancashire Railway. No buildings left just one platform, it is now on the Outwood Trail which I have been down several times this week.
Very informative and useful to my family history research. My 3x Great Grandfather John Bryant was listed as a porter or railway porter in the 1841 census (Bedminster), 1851 census (Highbridge), and 1861 census (Wells). In 1861 he, his wife and younger children were living in Lace Pool Lane in Wells (road no longer exists). He may well have worked at other stations on what was to become the GWR network.
By 1870 he was working as a porter at Paddington, but by the 1871 census he was in the local workhouse where he died later that year.
Sounds like the workhouse was fullfiling its role as a hospital - did he die from injuries working on the railway or just old age (must have been 60+ ?)
@@highpath4776 John was in the workhouse infirmary when he died. He was admitted in February 1870 and died in December 1871, so it is unlikely (but not impossible) he spent 22 months in the infirmary. I assume he could no longer do his portarage duties at Paddington and neither of his youngest 2 children, who also moved to London, we able to support him.
great video again Paul and Rebecca , they are always entertaining and very interesting , well done and thank you guys :)
I love the editing and camera angles. I saw you talking to some bushes.
Great content as always!
Very interesting learning about the railway stations Wells used to have, shame they're all gone as I would of loved to visit Wells itself seeing as it's the smallest city in the whole of the UK.
Yup we didn't have a chance to go into the city but I'm sure it's a nice place to visit.
Wells is the smallest city in England, St David's in Wales is the UKs smallest city
@@markwalker2627 Ha! you beat me by 3 minutes! Just about to say the very same thing. Great minds thing alike.
@@pwhitewick It is... worth going back
@@markwalker2627 Unless you use Paul's metric of land mass
It was interresting to see how one small city got 3 or 4 stations, so thank you for the story! Not surprised that those are all lost though.
Even now I have clear memories of various steam trains travelling along that line in Wells.
We used to play in the derelict train station as kids back in the 1960’s (not the Tucker Street or Priory road stations but the other one).
Soooo long ago but I can still picture it in its derelict state!
Just a short one today! Still...as informative as ever!
Marvellous Paul miss Rebecca hope longer blog next week 😀 🙏 both keep smiling 😃
Back with a 14 minuter next week.
Shepton Mallet. The UK has such wonderful place names.
1st time I've ever heard it pronounced 'with am' always pronounced it 'wit ham' . I work for clarks shoes & between 1991 to early 1997 our department was based in the old buffer store, or cold store as we knew it on the outskirts of Wells. There were rails still embedded in the ground outside which originally would of been linked to the GWR line between Wells & Shepton. To this day I do believe they are still there.
You could have said a lot more but otherwise excellent. Wells’ railway history is fascinating. I tried making a model of Priory Road some years ago and completed the S&DJR goods shed which was still standing mid 80s.
Amazing work 👏
glad you got to wells hopefully you'll cycle the cheddar valley line as there's quite a lot left to look at
The somerset central originally planned to go north across the baby eating bishop of bath and wells fields but were scared off. Priory road station was next to Tinkcknell's I used to go to the coal yard every week with my gran.
Further south and east along the S&DJR, towards Evercreech Junction, the embankment of the line forms a prominent feature running across the site of the Glastonbury Festival.
I grew up in Wells. In the 70's the Strawberry Line to Cheddar was still there minus the track. The level crossing gates on the Glastonbury Road, a humpback bridge on the Burcott Road and deep cutting and high bridge under Portway all the way to another humpback bridge and platform and buildings at Haybridge (not Wookey). In Wells, about 1981 Fran Ridewood (now Halfords) built a new bike shop on the old goods yard and not long after more development took place and the distinctive scar started to disappear.
There are ambitious plans to reopen most of the old Strawberry Line as a cycle route, adding to the reopened section between Cheddar and Yatton. I cannot see that happening any time soon, however.
Interesting as always Guys. Also have you looked at the History of Railways in Dewsbury West Yorkshire ?. It seems to have had 4 main stations, 3 through ones (Dewsbury-Thornhill, Central & Wellington road - the current remaining one, plus a Terminus- Market Place) along with outlying smaller ones at Earlsheaton, Crackenedge, Ravensthorpe etc and 2 goods only terminus sites.
Thanks Paul that toasted cheese bit hit the pun spot.
Amazing best in the worldwide rail station vlog
It is crazy how even some of the smallest places had so many stations. Good to see them commemorated though, so many places have just forgotten them.
Well well well! I'd never conceived of such a sequence of commissioning and de-commissioning in such a small area.
Mad innit
Short but sweet - thank you 🙂🚂🚂🚂
My home town, Burnley, is the smallest town in England to have 4 working railway stations still active today. The modern "District of Burnley" area has 5 operational stations
The South London suburb of Coulsdon has three stations, Coulsdon South which is on the main line from London to Sussex via Redhill, and on the Tattenham Corner line there is Coulsdon Town which was formally known as Smitham and also Woodmansterne which is firmly in Coulsdon in Greater London although being named after a neighbouring village over the border in Surrey. Until the early 1980's there was a fourth station called Coulsdon North on the main fast London to Brighton Quarry' line. This was once the southern terminus of an experimental overhead electrically powered system of trains before the Southern railway adopted the third rail system of electrical power. Before then when this station was known as Stoats Nest there were two fatal accidents here in the first decade of the 20th century. In the first a local was killed laying across the track and being hit by an engine during the making of a film, and the second was when part of a train jumped the tracks crashing into a platform killing seven people and injuring many more.
Another interesting, if short video. It seems short sighted by the government of the time to close some railway lines and stations which could now do with a rail connection as they have grown in size. Shepton Mallet, Radstock, Midsomer Norton as examples on the S&D line.
The small town of wath upon dearn in south Yorkshire had three great central , LMS and hull and Barnsley , the pre grouping companies were very competative would go after any bit of revenue and different companies lines often ran side by Side , all these duplicate lines kept the railways open in WW2 as there was always an alternative route around bomb damaged lines, today Wath also has zero stations and there are many more examples , makes you wonder if some of these stations ever turned a profit
My old home town
Small city with so many stations. Fascinating. Pity there are none left.
A suggestion for a bit of a suprise; Reading. Reading Central goods (yard now taken up the A33 and a retail park but the old track bed is now a footpath - route is clearly shown on Google satellite). Reading South is now an office block, but the "oddly remote" positioned platforms for Gatwick/Waterloo (less obvious since the rebuild) show how two neighbouring stations merged. And if you want to take the piss, add the original plans for Reading West redesign, which essentially was add a shipping container on the road and call it a ticket office.
Edit to add, go to the blatantly obvious ex railway bridge and you'll find a crossroad with Pell STREET, Elgar ROAD, Katesgrove LANE and Berkley AVENUE. Supposedly the only crossroads in the UK with 4 different road designations.
Traffic lights at the top of strawberry way have the tunnel under the road if you can look up the old burcott bridge
Very interesting, as ever. I’ve only been to wells to see the cathedral and the area around it; I knew it had a railway station, but not as many as this!
Frustratingly we had no time forbthe city itself. Must get back there.
@@pwhitewick - it’s definitely worth a decent look if you get the chance
Honestly, how often do you guys play David Bowie's "Station to station"...per week??
brilliant video
Quite spooky as we are going to the east Somerset railway soon for a day trip.
St asaph in North Wales is also a city with a disused station is smaller than wells
I Iived and worked in Wells for years having grown up in the area, the building on Tucker Street used to be the snooker club & bar I went to after work, never connected it with the railways, and never knew there were 4 stations there either, great video, have you added those 4 to the abandoned stations list ?
Great thanks paul the br rail system was wrecked like ours in down under nsw cheers bob.
See it's stuff like this that needs to be reinstated for Britain
Here in Dolphinton (pop: 121 area: 1400ha) we had two railway terminii. Both now closed and hard to find remains of. Give us a shout if you want to explore the abandoned lines and stations here.
Paul, eccentric talking about eccentricity on our railways 100 years before my birth. (Apologies for the personal tag, but let Rebecca confirm). Only nagging thing is that it wasn't really long enough, BUT, still a great, informative lost/abandoned vid! Cheers
I realise Rebecca is busy with her own content now, but I do miss her on this channel and your banter in these type of videos.
She was in last weeks video. And thw week before. And she's in next week's too. Tis all good.
@@pwhitewick mea culpa. I’m a fool for not watching them all! By the way I grew up in Dorset near Somerset and Wiltshire borders so I’ve been enjoying your forays westward from your Hampshire base. If you ever come to Surrey and want company let me know. 😁
good video
Wells that was a good video! Loving the history of UK's smallest City and a very presented video
Fine re you using your poetic licence. I bought mine in 1966 just prior to sitting my English Lit O-Level for seven and sixpence at my local Post Office in Muswell Hill. Came in very handy. Where did you get yours?
wonderful part of the old s&d,but 4 is surely a lot for so little
Excellent and utterly fascinating. Judging by their building dates, were the original 2 stations/lines a standard gauge and Broad gauge?
Yup, changed in 1875 I think.
Love yer hair Bec
Great video, nice backing track as well. That's four more stations, what are the totals looking like now?
Good luck from Spain?
We have an #EveryDisusedStation from the Cheddar line in a couple of weeks to will tot them all up then.
That’s shocking. I thought Ely would of been smaller it looks smaller on an overhead view. Shows how looks can be deceptive
Well, well, Wells!
Wells, Wells, Wells, wookey
How was this not an Every Disused Station video?!
Good question. Well we did film the Cheddar Line which will be out in a week or two
Trying not to think about all the ways my life would be better if TH-cam showed me this video 2 weeks ago 😢
The Somerset Central, later S&D, was broad gauge? You’d expect the line coming in from the later GW would be the broad gauge line 🤔
Even with the rails removed, you can still make out where they went on satellite images
Some time Paul[and Rebecca], you must do the rest of the Strawberry Line, it not only has lots of disused stations you could tick off it also has some great infrastructure and all of it is a public footpath/cycle path. I would be most happy to "sherpa" for you and provide some B&B at no extra charge!
Ah thabk you. Already filmed im afraid. Should be out in a few weeks.
@@pwhitewick Aw shame, pencil me in for when you want to do the Weston,Clevedon and Portishead.
@@pwhitewick that will be interesting - I work at Yatton Station in the Strawberry Line Cafe!
@@lyngleed ah we must have just missed you. I think it was all closed up when we arrived.
@@pwhitewick Awwww shame,you'll have to come back one day - we make a great cuppa and cakes!
Smoked cheddar is excellent!
Concur!!
Have you been to the ghost pipe in bleadon yet?
These stations all added to the greater good
Wait , there’s a town call Wookey ? Cheers from California !
A village really. Close by is the village of Wookey Hole too 😄
Hey Paul, great video, thanks. I may have missed it but which railway trail is that? We love going away for a couple of days and taking in a bike ride (a lovely flat one with scenery!). It looks great.
Cheddar Line. Tis gorgeous.
@@pwhitewick Many thanks!
lovely video. do have a look at this: BRANCH LINE - 1 - Sir John Betjeman
Excellent video - as always - but it would be great if you could work on doing proper subtitles. YT's automated effort is woefully inadequate, and your videos deserve better.
Will take a look at what went wrong later. 👍
Yes they went a mad when that started putting down lines and building station in the middle of no where
Only one thing to say about this video - "Yarp!"
I'm sure the population of Wells benefited greatly from the plethora of stations and the workers that built and operated them gained some form of livelihood, but one wonders whether there was ever a profit made from these ventures, albeit off the backs of the workforce?
Wells (Next-the-Sea) in Norfolk also lost all its rail connections to the outside world. Perhaps it's something about the name Wells.
Oh gosh years ago
Did you say Tucker Road?
Your high power intellect is just too fast for a calm Sunday afternoon - but I thoroughly enjoyed the production, thank you!
It seems to me that Somerset, Devon and Cornwall suffer from terrible traffic problems because of the lack of railway lines - There is surely a huge untapped market for freight transport.
Untapped for tourism absolutely.
@@pwhitewick oh yes I recall that Beeching claimed it would be too expensive to store the trains over winter, so a tourist line was closed. It is the stuff of nightmares driving into the south west
I was going to make a joke about Wells having a fish named after it but that’s not the same spelling (wels)…
4th station outside the 2.11sq miles? 🧐 oh go on we'll let you off 😉
it’s weird thinking that the city named after Wells has a station while the original has none…
'Scuse me sonny. Is that a full or provisional licence for that poetry? if its only a provisional that you need to be accopanied by a qualified bard on public highways.
Is the City of London the smallest city in the UK, by area (St David's by population) ?
It's a pity that Wookey station was not open in the 70's - would have been a cult destination!
👍
Wonder how the morning congestion is round there these days.
Thought Ripon in yorkshire was the only city in uk without a railway line and thought Ripon was smallest city in uk